Federal court arraigns N.J. man for attempted rocket export

A New Jersey man once imprisoned for trying to sell deadly nerve gas to Iran will be arraigned Thursday in Fort Lauderdale federal court on new military hardware violations: attempting to broker the sale of Russian rocket boosters to South Korea.

Juwhan Yun, a 68-year-old Korean American, was arrested earlier this month at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport after meeting with a former arms-trafficker-turned-federal-informant with Russian contacts.

The informant had done deals with Yun for Russian SU-27 fighter planes and surface-to-air missiles.

This time, Yun, a naturalized U.S. citizen, stepped right into an undercover operation led by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Defense Department agents.

After his arrest, investigators found about 17,000 e-mails on Yun's computer at his home in Short Hills, N.J., that described negotiations to buy and sell radar systems, short-wave infrared cameras, laser-guided bomb components and missile launchers, according to court records.

In one e-mail, Yun wrote that "he has been the largest one-stop supplier of Howitzers, Vulcan air defense systems and other products for the Republic of Korea" during the past 30 years, court records show.